The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1887-03-30


although had about five hundred dollars
IN the pocket, and throw them to the op-
posite shore, where / afterwards recover
ed them, but during the remainder of the
battle | had nothing on but shirt. Near
~ all the men belonging to the settlement
were back about half mile from the In
dians. We three had crossed the stream
and were opposite the Indians, about six
ty steps off, and had commenced to fire on
them, whel this mob, seeing us with our
flesh colored buckskin clothes, mistook us
tor Indians and opened heavy fire on us,
| oblging us to retreat across the river
again.
When the Indians saw our plan, the
uselessness of their arms and the trap thev
had placed themselves in, they realized
their fate. gloomy Nemesis scowled
retribution for the massacre of many
white man. We could see the smoke from
the circling pipe and hear the low wall of
the death song.
By this time Jim Wells, Dennis Halpin
and others, who were on the opposite side
of the Missouri river when the fight COM
menced, had crossed the Missouri when
they heard the firing and had hurried up
to the front. This time Jim Wells. Frank
Smith and Frenchy crossed the Musse1-
she'll at better point and opened fire on
the Indians from the rear. The Indians
jumped out of the coulee with wild terror
and panic and fear and were met with a
whitening volley from those on the bank,
which caused them to run almost any
where in their blind terror. There was
not cheer, nor yell; not a sound but
that of the painting of the breathless, hor-
ritied Indians, and the rattle of the fire.
arms, which sounded terribly distinct
against that lowering rainy sky, as the
deadly cross-fre swept their tumultous,
panic stricken flight.
[ recollect one great big Indian-horror
and death staring in his wild eye balls
blind in his terror who almost ran into
the party on the bank, but bullet
stretched him on the plain, and as he fu-
riously grasped the sage brush his Sob
bing, gurgling breath ended in death.
Another handsome boy with chattering
teeth and stifening hair-pity should
have spared him-but black death and I
fate sealed his eyes.
In their wild despair they plunged into
the river. Some were shot as they mired,
others dragged their wounded bodies to
the brush. No Indian would have escap-
ed had it not been for this mob half a
mile off. They fired indiscriminateIy at
friend or foe, and prevented us from clos
ing in on the Indians. 1t is the curse of
bodies, that their panic fear
invites massacre, and their want of union
snatches the fruits of success out of the
very grasp of victory. Men who took an
active part in the battle scalped the In
dians, but no brave man otherwise mutt
lated the dead.
Several Crow squaws, who were living
in the settlement, when they heard the
heavy firing, which the battle closed with,
came out about half way and were engag-
ed in war dance, ,and the high notes of ;
The war peans sounded wierdly through I
he mist and rain. After the battle pass
I'd by them on my way back to the settle
nent to get some clothes for myself, and
heir fiattering attentions were rather en-
'arrassing, in my undressed condition.
An old fraud, by the name of Capt. An I
lreWs, cut the heads off the dead Indians,
emoyed the flesh and brains by boiling,
abelled the skulls with awe inspiring Z
James, and started on a lecturing tour u
the states, in which I have no
oubt, he made Baron Munchausen
shamed Of himself.
Another person of an economical, enter
rising turn of mind, who owned sow d
nd litter of pigs, directed their porcine I
lstincts to the human feast, and the 6
ght of her and ghoulish progeny, return
lg from their Indian meal has given me
distaste for pork ever since.
Thirteen Indians were left dead on the OF
round, and the camp when they came in til
gather mp the remaining bones and la ty
ent the dead, acknowledged that more sa
ian thirty died on the route to the camp, ii,
I'D only one out of the ninety-odd who be
ere in the fight escaped Ivithouta wound. 81
Next day we found the cache where w
ey stripped for the fight, in which there
as more than hundred robes, a great
any moccasins and two war bonnets.
he robes and moecasins were sold and ar
9 money given to the wounded man, cit
.eenwood. Wells and myself received n,
e two war bonnets. Wells war bonnet st.
as Il circlet crown of war eagle feathers. 10.
ie head piece Of mine had horns and m,
unt, ani the waving tail, made from th
6 tail feathers of war eagles, was more an
an five feet long. %
The names of the men whom I saw take